Wednesday, May 30, 2012

I don't think this needs an introduction, although I do say a few words below regarding an earlier post on Highway robbery in Tennessee.

Man Loses $22,000 In New 'Policing For Profit' Case

By Phil WilliamsChief Investigative ReporterMay 22, 2012

MONTEREY, Tenn. -- "If somebody told me this happened to them, I absolutely would not believe this could happen in America."

That was the reaction of a New Jersey man who found out just how risky it can be to carry cash through Tennessee.

For more than a year, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has been shining a light on a practice that some call "policing for profit."

In this latest case, a Monterey police officer took $22,000 off the driver -- even though he had committed no crime.

"You live in the United States, you think you have rights -- and apparently you don't," said George Reby.

As a professional insurance adjuster, Reby spends a lot of time traveling from state to state. But it was on a trip to a conference in Nashville last January that he got a real education in Tennessee justice.

"I never had any clue that they thought they could take my money legally," Reby added. "I didn't do anything wrong."

Reby was driving down Interstate 40, heading west through Putnam County, when he was stopped for speeding.

A Monterey police officer wanted to know if he was carrying any large amounts of cash.

"I said, 'Around $20,000,'" he recalled. "Then, at the point, he said, 'Do you mind if I search your vehicle?' I said, 'No, I don't mind.' I certainly didn't feel I was doing anything wrong. It was my money."

That's when Officer Larry Bates confiscated the cash based on his suspicion that it was drug money.

"Why didn't you arrest him?" we asked Bates.

"Because he hadn't committed a criminal law," the officer answered.

Bates said the amount of money and the way it was packed gave him reason to be suspicious.

"The safest place to put your money if it's legitimate is in a bank account," he explained. "He stated he had two. I would put it in a bank account. It draws interest and it's safer."

"But it's not illegal to carry cash," we noted.

"No, it's not illegal to carry cash," Bates said. "Again, it's what the cash is being used for to facilitate or what it is being utilized for."

NewsChannel 5 Investigates noted, "But you had no proof that money was being used for drug trafficking, correct? No proof?"

"And he couldn't prove it was legitimate," Bates insisted.

Bates is part of a system that, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has discovered, gives Tennessee police agencies the incentive to take cash off of out-of-state drivers. If they don't come back to fight for their money, the agency gets to keep it all.

"This is a taking without due process," said Union City attorney John Miles.

A former Texas prosecutor and chairman of the Obion County Tea Party, Miles has seen similar cases in his area.

He said that, while police are required to get a judge to sign off on a seizure within five days, state law says that hearing "shall be ex parte" -- meaning only the officer's side can be heard.

That's why George Reby was never told that there was a hearing on his case.

"It wouldn't have mattered because the judge would have said, 'This says it shall be ex parte. Sit down and shut up. I'm not to hear from you -- by statute," Miles added.

George Reby said that he told Monterey officers that "I had active bids on EBay, that I was trying to buy a vehicle. They just didn't want to hear it."

In fact, Reby had proof on his computer.

But the Monterey officer drew up a damning affidavit, citing his own training that "common people do not carry this much U.S. currency."

Read Officer Bates' affidavit

"On the street, a thousand-dollar bundle could approximately buy two ounces of cocaine," Bates told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.

"Or the money could have been used to buy a car," we observed.

"It's possible," he admitted.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Bates if Reby had told him that he was trying to buy a car?

"He did," the officer acknowledged.

"But you did not include that in your report," we noted.

"If it's not in there, I didn't put it in there."

So why did he leave that out?

"I don't know," the officer said.

Bates also told the judge the money was hidden inside "a tool bag underneath trash to [deter] law enforcement from locating it."

"That's inaccurate," Reby said. "I pulled out the bag and gave it to him."

And even though there was no proof that Reby was involved in anything illegal, Bates' affidavit portrays him as a man with a criminal history that included an arrest for possession of cocaine.

That was 20-some years ago," the New Jersey man insisted.

"Were you convicted?" we wanted to know.

"No, I wasn't convicted," he answered.

But Officer Bates says that arrest -- which he acknowledged was old -- was still part of the calculation to take Reby's money.

"Am I going to use it? Yes, I'm going to use it because he's been charged with it in the past -- regardless of whether it's 10 or 15 years ago," he said.

Attorney John Miles said he's frustrated with attitudes toward Tennessee's civil forfeiture laws, which make such practices legal.

"We are entitled not to be deprived of our property without due process of law, both under the Tennessee Constitution and the federal Constitution -- and nobody cares," Miles said.

"Nobody cares."

This year, state lawmakers debated a bill to create a special committee to investigate these "policing for profit" issues. That bill died in the last days of the legislative session.

After Reby filed an appeal, and after NewsChannel 5 began investigating, the state agreed to return his money -- if he'd sign a statement waiving his constitutional rights and promising not to sue.

They also made him come all the way from New Jersey, back to Monterey to pick up a check.

He got the check, but no apology.

"If they lied about everything in the report, why would they apologize?" Reby said.

And, with that, he was ready to put Tennessee in his rearview mirror.

"I really don't want to come back here," he said.

As for the appeals process, Reby was able to provide us and the state with letters from his employers, showing that he had a legitimate source of income.

It took him four months to get his money back, but it usually takes a lot longer for most people.

And that, Miles said, works to the benefit of the police.

He had two clients where police agreed to drop the cases in exchange for a cut of the money -- $1,000 in one case, $2,000 in another. In both cases, that was less than what they might have paid in attorney fees.

This one really has to be seen to be believed. There are parts of this clip that are reminiscent of watching a wildlife program ,where the vultures (uniforms) are squabbling among themselves over who gets first bite of the carcass.

Come back Dick Turpin, all is forgiven. At least he that the decency to wear a mask.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. A major News Channel 5 investigation has uncovered serious questions about Tennessee's war on drugs. Among the questions: are some police agencies more concerned about making money off the drugs, than stopping them?

At the center of this months-long investigation are laws that let officers pull driver over looking for cash. Those officers do not even have to file criminal charges against a person to take his/her money.

It turns out, those kind of stops are now happening almost every day in Middle Tennessee.

Case in point: a 2009 stop where a tractor trailer was stopped for a traffic violation, leading to a search and the discovery of large blocks containing almost $200,000 cash -- cash that officers keep on the suspicion that it's drug money. more transcript

A Tulsa County jury imposed a 2½-year prison sentence Friday night after convicting a woman of second-degree manslaughter in the diabetes-related death of her ailing son, whose treatment she believed relied upon spiritual means.

Prosecutors alleged that Susan Grady acted with “culpable negligence” toward 9-year-old Aaron Grady between June 2 and June 5, 2009, by not seeking medical treatment for him.

Aaron died June 5, 2009, at his family’s Broken Arrow apartment from complications of diabetes mellitus.

District Judge William Kellough set formal sentencing for June 8.

Grady, 43, who has been free on bond, was jailed after the verdict was delivered.

Defense attorney Rob Nigh, who expressed disappointment with the outcome, said he will seek an appeal bond, which would allow Grady to stay out of custody during an appeal. That matter could be taken up at the formal sentencing.

Grady did not testify.

In relying on prayer to heal her son, Grady, a member of the Church of the Firstborn, told police in 2009, “I didn’t want to be weak in my faith and disappoint God.”

Nigh has maintained that Grady’s conduct was not unreasonable, based upon the teachings of her church.

Assistant District Attorney Ben Fu told jurors in a closing argument that the prosecution “did not put the Church of the Firstborn on trial this week.”

Monday, May 28, 2012

The US judicial system has a thousand faults and is rotten to the core. One of the first things that needs outlawing is the use of testimony from jailhouse snitches.

Do check out the exonerationregistry.org link, it's scary I tell you. The figures are astonishing.

How America's Death Penalty Murders Innocents

The evidence is in: the US criminal justice system produces wrongful convictions on an industrial scale – with fatal resultsDavid A Love21 May 2012

The US criminal justice system is a broken machine that wrongfully convicts innocent people, sentencing thousands of people to prison or to death for the crimes of others, as a new study reveals. The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University have compiled a new National Registry of Exonerations – a database of over 2,000 prisoners exonerated between 1989 and the present day, when DNA evidence has been widely used to clear the names of innocent people convicted of rape and murder. Of these, 885 have profiles developed for the registry's website, exonerationregistry.org.

The details are shocking. Death row inmates were exonerated nine times more frequently than others convicted of murder. One-fourth of those exonerated of murder had received a death sentence, while half of those who had been wrongfully convicted of rape or murder faced death or a life behind bars. Ten of the inmates went to their grave before their names were cleared.

The leading causes of wrongful convictions include perjury, flawed eyewitness identification and prosecutorial misconduct. For those who have placed unequivocal faith in the US criminal justice system and believe that all condemned prisoners are guilty of the crime of which they were convicted, the data must make for a rude awakening.

"The most important thing we know about false convictions is that they happen and on a regular basis … Most false convictions never see the light of the day," said University of Michigan law professors Samuel Gross and Michael Shaffer, who wrote the study.

"Nobody had an inkling of the serious problem of false confessions until we had this data," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University.

The unveiling of the exoneration registry comes days after a groundbreaking study from Columbia law school Professor James Liebman and 12 students. Published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, the study describes how Texas executed an innocent man named Carlos DeLuna in 1989. DeLuna was put to death for the 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a young woman, at a gas station. Carlos Hernandez, who bragged about committing the murder and bore a striking resemblance to DeLuna, was named at trial by DeLuna's defence team as the actual perpetrator of the crime. But DeLuna's false conviction is merely the tip of the iceberg, as the database suggests.

Recently also, Charlie Baird, a Texas judge, was prepared to issue an order posthumously exonerating Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the 1991 arson-related deaths of his three young daughters. Based upon "overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence", Baird concluded Willingham had been wrongfully convicted; this in addition to a jailhouse witness who recanted his testimony, and scientists who challenged the evidence at trial that the fire that destroyed the Willingham home was caused by arson. Baird was blocked by a state appeals court from issuing the order before he left the bench to pursue private practice.

And again in Texas, lawyers for Kerry Max Cook, a former death row prisoner who was wrongfully convicted of a 1977 murder in East Texas, claim that the district attorney in the case withheld in his possession the murder weapon and biological evidence in the case.

In 2012, the American death penalty has reached a crossroads. Public support for executions has decreased over the years, with capital punishment critics citing its high cost, failure to deter crime, and the fact that the practice places the nation out of step with international human rights norms. Last year, the US ranked fifth in the world in executions, a member of a select club of nations that includes China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Further, in the US states that have repealed the death penalty in recent years – including New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois and, most recently, Connecticut – the killing of the innocent has been cited as a pivotal factor in favor of abolition.

Meanwhile, thanks to an EU embargo on lethal injection drugs to the US, states that practice capital punishment are faced with a shortage of poison to execute prisoners. Some have resorted to purchasing unapproved drug supplies on the black market, or using different chemicals altogether. For example, Ohio has abandoned its three-drug protocol for executions in favor of a single drug called pentobarbital, a barbiturate used to euthanize animals. And Missouri has decided to execute prisoners using propofol, a surgical anesthetic implicated in Michael Jackson's death.

Apparently desperate and lacking in options to kill, these states would be better-served by joining the civilized world and devoting their efforts to end the death penalty, rather than find new methods to satisfy their bloodlust – which, as the new evidence makes abundantly clear, cannot but cause them to execute innocent citizens. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 140 men and women have been released from death row since 1973 due to innocence. That death row inmates are exonerated much more often than other categories of prisoner – even when a person's life is at stake – should shatter anyone's faith in the presumed infallibility of the court system.

It is now transparent to the public that, at best, the application of the death penalty is rife with human error and incompetence. At worst, we know there is prosecutorial misconduct: that the courts shelter and nurture officials who are rewarded for gaming the system by career advancement, rather than determining true guilt or innocence and ensuring that justice is done. Guardian

Saturday, May 26, 2012

It wasn't for just any old reason that a year ago now, I composed the graphic below. Befitting then, befitting now, and befitting for the foreseeable future. Unless of course, the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi Number 4 catches fire, and then I suppose, it won't matter much what kind of graphic I create.

But I think I can safely guarantee one thing, it won't be the rapture and the hand of God that takes centre stage in the final act of this little play called, The Arrogance of Man, no Sir, it will be those among us that have tried to play God.

I only mention this in passing, because I sourced the picture at the end of this post from just one of the ubiquitous sites that testify to their own puerility, the god worshippers. Of every ilk I add.

Between this post and the associated links, I suppose it's just about all there, but you will find further, including videos, under the Japan tag. The previous three posts all being relative to the spent fuel pool at Fukushima 4.

As Fukushima Goes, So Goes Japan

By The Fukushima Five

February 21, 2012

Tokyo has the largest “greater metro” population in the world at about 34.3 million. Tokyo has the largest GDP of all major cities in the world – larger than both New York City and London. Tokyo is the economic/financial capital of the world’s 3rd largest national economy, as well as the primary economic engine of East Asia.

Fukushima, the location of the greatest nuclear power plant disaster in our age, is located a mere 238 kilometers or 148 miles from Tokyo. Unlike the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe which occurred in a landlocked area north of Kiev Ukraine, Fukushima is located directly on the coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

Whereas Chernobyl was entombed in order to contain the environmental radiation, Fukushima is still out of control. Completely out of control, and no one yet has publicly offered a viable solution either short or long term.

Because of the inherent dangers associated with properly diagnosing and assessing the true state of affairs at Fukushima, the on-site nuclear authorities do not even know what they don’t know!

Because of the extraordinary and ongoing level of misinformation, disinformation and false information routinely disseminated from the inception of this global environmental cataclysm, many educated onlookers believe that much of what is known with certainty has not, and will not, be shared with the public-at-large. And especially not with those unfortunate souls living within reach of proven emitted radiation whether it is carried by air, water or land.

The Japanese Government has been AWOL throughout this entire planetary ordeal. TEPCO, the responsible ‘power’ company, has been continuously out to lunch since March 11, 2011. As for the Mainstrean Media (MSM), there’s clearly nobody home. Many within the alternative media, however, have done their level best to get to the truth and publish whatever facts can be substantiated.

What’s really going on here … or rather there at FUKUSHIMA?

Why such a blackout on good info? What is so serious that a complete data lockdown was put into place from day one? Who is really calling the shots and why? Do we really want to know?! If so, then read on.

First, let us reiterate the sentiments of many deep contacts, whistleblowers and insiders within the nuclear power industry. These same strongly held convictions are also shared by many outsiders, experts who are quite competent in the related scientific and academic disciplines. We have likewise heard from the many investigative journalists and nuclear researchers who have simply applied common sense and the faculty of reason to evaluate this tragic predicament

Their collective verdict can be summed up as follows: Fukushima is, by far, the greatest technological challenge facing humanity today. Because of it’s resistance to being resolved in any meaningful way, it continues to do awesome and incalculable damage – globally – much of which is very difficult, if not impossible, to estimate or even identify.

Among the cognoscenti the following quotes represents the consensus around this whole matter:

“Does anyone in their right mind believe that nuclear power plants can ever be designed, engineered or constructed to withstand 9.0 earthquakes followed by 15 meter high tsunamis? Sorry if we offend, but such a display of so deadly a combination of ignorance and arrogance must represent the very height of hubris. Particularly in view of the inevitable consequences which have manifested at Fukushima, how is it that so few saw this pre-ordained and disastrous outcome, except by willful blindness?” ~ An Open Letter to the People of Japan

Here’s another one to boot:

“Quite purposefully, no one ever stopped to consider the obvious and far-reaching ramifications of constructing 55 nuclear reactors on the most seismically active piece of property on planet Earth! And, that doesn’t count another 12 reactors in various stages of planning or development.” ~ Japan: A Nation Consigned To Nuclear Armageddon

And then there’s this one which speaks directly to the title of this essay:

“When the actual costs are tallied, because of the proximity to the most populated metro area in the world, this disaster will be the most expensive in history. The amount required from the Japanese treasury to properly and safely remediate Fukushima are so staggering that they should have understood the true risks beforehand. However, once they sited so many nuclear reactors on the most earthquake-prone stretch of real estate in the Ring of Fire ….” ~ Japanese Nuclear Disaster: Health Watch (on Facebook)

How many truly get it yet?! Given the state of the art, which predominates throughout the entire global nuclear power industry, those nuclear reactors should never have been built anywhere in Japan. Actually, they shouldn’t have been built anywhere on Planet Earth, but that’s another story.

Moral of this story: Grossly Unsound and Extremely Dangerous Nuclear Technology is an Obvious Mismatch for a Planet Undergoing Unprecedented and Unpredictable Flux

All the seismological data indicates a dramatic uptick in earthquakes (on both land and undersea), volcanoes, and other geological phenomenon, which can profoundly affect the workings of a nuclear power plant. One hundred year, five hundred year and thousand year floods also have a way of wreaking havoc with nuclear reactors, especially when the loss of power (due to flooding) shuts down the cooling systems!

Let’s bear in mind that Mother Nature can strike at any time throughout this earthly scenario, as she often does. Given that Japan has consistently experienced some of the highest levels of earthquake activity throughout the planet ever since such monitoring was possible, is it likely that the 9.0 was a natural event? All the seismologists seem to think so. Is there any evidence to the contrary? And if so, what cause a 50 foot tsumani that destroyed an entire coastline?

If there is credible evidence that a subsea nuclear blast caused this 15-meter wall of water, then let’s see it. Such explosions have very unique signatures and distinguishing sound features which can be easily traced and confirmed. There has been no scientific evidence that substantiates a nuclear origin of the tsunami to date.

There is also the massive amount of evidence that it currently making a trans-Pacific journey to the West Coast of America. Not sure how they plan to conceal the inevitable radioactivity associated with a deliberate nuke blast that would cling to at least some of the 25 million tons of waterborne debris. With the Twin Towers they were at least able to convey much of the most damning evidence to China by the shipload. Let’s see what shows up on Malibu before we close the book on this inquiry. Waterlogged mattresses that glow in the dark would definitely get our attention.

Critical question for those who advance the theory of a nuclear blast-driven tsunami even in the absence of evidence (*Please see list of theories below):

Why would those who are at the peak of the global control matrix deliberately poison the Pacific Ocean, contaminate its sea life, and open up the myriad possibilities for a planetary contamination by radiation through sea currents and air dispersal? Who, or “What” would ever permanently poison their nest to such a self-destructive degree?!

By the way we are not suggesting that nuclear weapons are not involved in this whole saga. Evidence has been introduced into the public domain which clearly indicates the likelihood that a full blown weapons program had been hiding within Japanese nuclear plants. This is a serious allegation which would probably only have come to light by an Act of God. We’re thinking about something like a mega-quake followed by a massive tsunami.

Now, back our central thesis, As Fukushima Goes, So Goes Japan. If and when this ongoing nuclear calamity starts to grow legs and decides to take a trip south – to Tokyo, for instance – we can all agree that this will be the beginning of the end. Were Tokyo to be evacuated by governmental fiat, the world’s third largest economy would immediately tank. Bear in mind that the next three largest cities in Japan are truly a stone’s throw from Tokyo (Someone really liked the view!) In order of size, the metro areas of Yokohama, Osaka and Nagoya, in the aggregate, contribute quite substantially to Japan’s GNP and, therefore, to the world economy.

Just in case you thought we were fear-mongering, the following headline appeared last September in one of the largest English newspapers in Japan:

This begs the questions about why the same world controllers would conspicuously wreck the third largest economy on earth … right in the middle of the Greatest Global Depression of all time! We know they (TPTW) terribly dislike uncontrollable chaos and panic-ridden pandemonium. Would they risk a genuine global economic and financial breakdown in the midst of all the rest of their troubles?!

Not saying it’s not possible, but why in the name of Beelzebub would the Power Elite totally destroy the third largest economy on the planet, while they attempt to re-make EUROPE as the European Union disintegrates (literally) and the Euro collapses, take over an extremely unruly and unmanageable Middle East one oil-rich country at a time, and make mischief everywhere else the real Axis of Evil initiates a CIA/MI6/MOSSAD commandeered pick-your-color revolution.

Another question remains: Why would they (TPTW) forever ruin an aquatic economy known as the Pacific Ocean – the largest body of water on earth, which is also inextricably connected to all the other oceans? Don’t they eat the seafood, too? Certainly, the Pacific currents will ensure that what goes around, comes around.

There are many prophecies which speak specifically to the future of the four largest islands which comprise the nation of Japan. Might we be seeing a fulfillment of those predictions? If so, we might take consolation in the notion that whatever brought about the uniquely formidable, demanding and overwhelming challenge known as Fukushima, there is a much higher power in charge. This same “Higher Power” is behind the newly emerging and ever-evolving reality show known as 2012 on Planet Earth.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Firstly let me apologise for the Americanese, but it will be 'defense' not defence, that will be the primary search term. And if you think I'm being pedantic, well, you just don't understand the English do you?

I also thought about calling it the attack budget, but I guess there won't be too many searches under that term either.

Just a brief intro to this contemporary article and then on to a re-up for a previous post that looks at the physical properties of a million, a billion, and a trillion dollars respectively.

The Mindboggling Sum We Actually Spend on National Security

If you've heard a number for how much the U.S. spends on the military, it's probably in the neighborhood of $530 billion. But that's merely the beginning of it.By Chris Hellman and Mattea KramerMay 22, 2012

Recent months have seen a flurry of headlines about cuts (often called “threats”) to the U.S. defense budget. Last week, lawmakers in the House of Representatives even passed a bill that was meant to spare national security spending from future cuts by reducing school-lunch funding and other social programs.

Here, then, is a simple question that, for some curious reason, no one bothers to ask, no less answer: How much are we spending on national security these days? With major wars winding down, has Washington already cut such spending so close to the bone that further reductions would be perilous to our safety?

In fact, with projected cuts added in, the national security budget in fiscal 2013 will be nearly $1 trillion -- a staggering enough sum that it’s worth taking a walk through the maze of the national security budget to see just where that money’s lodged. more

Are The Good Times Really Over?June 21, 2011

Only until the second coming.

This was to be a post on Iraq's missing $6 billion, which has every chance of turning out to be a missing $18 billion. Story and video Al Jazeera. Which in turn got me to thinking, just how large physically is a billion dollars?

Well, judging by the photo below, (12 pallets) depicting one billion dollars in hundred dollar bills, it's not something you would want dropping on your toe. And if the report is to be believed and the figure is accurate, multiply that lot by eighteen.

So with my interest piqued, I started looking at other figures, specifically a trillion, and what that figure means in relation to the US national debt, now running at over fifteen trillion dollars.

Time is of the essence this evening, so I have taken advantage of the the work done by others, which is duly posted below.

One billion dollars in hundred dollar bills, and if you that's an eye opener, just wait until you get to the trillion dollar related data. But first, a short musical interlude.

From the man himself, Merle Haggard.

Or a studio produced Wynonna Judd cover.

How much is a million, billion, trillion?Wise Young PhD MDThe W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative NeuroscienceRutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8087

We often speak casually of millions, billions, or even trillions. We are accustomed to thinking of cities with millions of inhabitants, government agency budgets that add up to billions, and even the United States debt that that is now close to $9 trillion. Most people don't appreciate these numbers.

Let's start with a million.

• A million minutes is nearly two years (1 year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes). Put in another way, it will take you nearly two years to spend a million dollars if you paid a dollar a minute.

• A book called "How much is a million?" tried to explain the concept of a million to children, pointing out that it would take a person 23 days of non-stop counting to count a million anything, including dollars (Source).

• If you walked a million steps, you can walk to Boston from New York (approximately 200 miles), assuming that each of your steps is a bit longer than a foot (a million feet is 189 miles).

• Since each dollar bill weighs about a gram and each pound has about 454 grams, a million dollars in one dollar bills weighs about 2202.6 pounds (Source). In 20 dollar bills, a million dollars would still weigh 110 pounds. In 100 dollar bills, it would weigh 22.0 pounds.

• A stack of 1000 bills is about a foot tall. Therefore, a million dollar stacked on top of each other would be 1000 feet tall. The Empire State Building is 1250 feet tall. A dollar bill is about 6 inches by 2.5 inches (15.7 cm by 6.6 cm) or about 0.10 square foot. So one cubic feet of $1 bills has about $10,000. A million dollars would take up about 100 cubic feet.

A billion is of course 1000 million. You can multiply every thing above by 1000 but using $100 bills is a bit more practical.

• A billion minutes ago is about the time of the birth of Christ.

• A billion steps is more than 200,000 miles. The circumference of the earth is only 25,000 miles. Therefore, one can walk around the earth at least 9 times and possibly 10 times.

• A stack of $100 bills for a billion dollars would be 10,000 feet tall, taller than the tallest building in the United States and taller than any mountain east of the Rockies, including Mt. Washington (6288 ft, the tallest mountain in Northeast United States).

• It would take 230 days to count the 10 million $100 bills. That is to count $1 billion.

• On September 7, 2003, President Bush asked Congress to grant an additional $87 billion to continue the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The $87 billion would cover a whole football field with $100 bills to the depth of 6 inches. By September 2007, the United States will have spent $315 billion on the war (Source). The Senate is working on adding another $50 billion. The $365 billion would fill a football field to a depth of 2 feet with $100 bills.

• Filling a football field with $100 bills may seem sort of silly but it is not far from what the Bush Administration did. During Paul Bremer's tenure as administrator of Iraq, the United States shipped bales of cash to Iraq. The total amount cash sent was over $12 billion, requiring a football field size warehouse to store the cash. A special inspector general for the Iraqi reconstruction said that $8.8 billion is unaccounted for after being given to the Iraqi ministries. But more interesting, illustrating the physical dimensions of the cash shipped, $4 billion of the cash is missing, some 363 tons of it.

A trillion is an mind-boggling number, well beyond the capability of most of us to imagine. The following will illustrate.

• A trillion minutes ago is 31,688 years ago, close to the beginning of human history. In other words, if you spent a dollar per minute, you could barely spend a trillion dollars during all of known human history. Even if you spent $100 per minute, you would not be able to spend $1 trillion in 300 years, virtually the entire history of the United States.

• Packed in bales of $100 bills (each weighing a gram), a trillion dollars would be 10 billion $100 bills, or about 10 million kilograms, 22 million pounds, or over 10,000 tons of cash (at 2000 pounds per ton). A trillion dollars in $100 bills would occupy a million cubic feet of space. It would fill a football field 6 feet deep. Before the end of 2008, the United States is likely to have spent over a trillion dollars on Iraq. conclusion

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Captain Paul Watson is presently released from a German court on a quarter of a million dollars bond.

As hard as it might be to comprehend, fifty million sharks, valued in the billions of dollars, are taken annually by the shark finning industry.

Little wonder that Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd Conservation society have enemies. And let us not forget the Japanese, you can bet the farm that they will be up to their necks in this transparent piece of political chicanery.

Captain Paul Watson, founder of the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd, has been released on bail in Germany following his arrest for possible extradition to Costa Rica on decade-old charges stemming from a confrontation with shark fin poachers. Sea Shepherd continues to maintain that Watson’s arrest was politically motivated and is calling on its supporters to come together in a day of action on Wednesday when the Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla visits Germany. Watson joins us from Frankfurt. “We’ve never injured anybody,” Watson says. “The most powerful weapon in the world as far as I’m concerned is the camera, so we go into battle armed with cameras...Right now 19 million sharks a year are being destroyed to feed the shark fin industry in Asia. And that means the fins are cut off of these animals and they’re thrown back into the ocean, and this is what we filmed off of Guatemala and this is what we intervened against — a highly illegal operation.” [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

Documenting the extent to which Taiwan is scouring the seas for sharks, the Pew Environment Group released a series of images Wednesday that capture that nation’s impact on global fisheries.

Shark fishing boats in Taiwan. ( Shawn Heinrichs for the Pew Environment Group) A series of photos and accompanying video suggest that Tawain, which reports the fourth-largest shark catch in the world, is an even greater player in the international shark trade than previously thought. The images capture imperiled shark species, such as scalloped hammerhead and oceanic whitetip, being prepared to be sold.

“These images present a snapshot of the immense scale of shark-fishing operations and show the devastation resulting from the lack of science-based management of sharks,“ said Matt Rand, director of global shark conservation at the Pew Environment Group. “Unfortunately, since there are no limits on the number of these animals that can be killed in the open ocean, this activity can continue unabated.” Scientists estimate the global shark fin trade kills between 26 million and 73 million sharks a year. Sharks have become an increasingly priority for enviornmentalists because of the rising prices of shark fins. California recently banned shark fin soup to curb the trade and a number of countries have created shark sancturaries to protect the animals from overfishing. Those measures have not stopped the trade. In Colombia, this week, the Guardian reports that divers discovered a huge shark massacre in a shark sanctuary of the cost of an islaned called Malpelo.

Taiwanese officials, contacted in Washington, emphasized that the catch Pew documented complied with both Taiwanese and international law. Only three shark species — whale, basking and white sharks — have international trade protections, and there are no global limits on shark fishing.

Grace Lin, deputy director of the economic division at the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Office, said her country has a national action plan for sharks in place and is working to protect whale sharks, which swim in Taiwan’s waters. She added that as of Jan. 1 vessels will have to land sharks with fins attached, a move aimed at curbing the fin trade.

“We are aware of this,” Lin said of the massive shark trade in her nation.

Shark fins at a processing warehouse in Taiwan.

The U.S.-based environmental Pew Environment Group expressed concern over new photos that seem to show the killing of large numbers of "biologically vulnerable" sharks by fishermen in Taiwan

Saturday, May 19, 2012

It was only yesterday that I was explaining to my mother, that the greatest global threat facing us today, is not the posturing of America/Israel/Iran and any subsequent fallout which might occur from that testament to mankind's inanity. But rather our biggest threat is the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear installation; more specifically, the spent fuel pool above the number 4 reactor.

The result of this little chat with Ma'ma, was to remind me that it was time once again to check the latest offerings from Fairewinds Energy Education, formally Fairewinds Associates. Lo and behold, purely by coincidence, as does happen on occasion, Arnie Gundersen discusses the very thing in this thirty five minute presentation.

Fortunately, for those of you with limited bandwidth, Gundersen addresses the problem right from the off. And in doing so must be said, saves me having to elaborate further on this very real threat facing, not just ourselves as a species, but Mother Earth herself.

Arnie Gundersen: Unit 4 has always been my biggest concern. If you watched our website on the very first week of the accident I was saying that if Unit 4 were to catch fire, you would have to evacuate Tokyo. As a matter of fact the book that we wrote talks about that a lot. It is really important and it remains the biggest concern that I have about the Fukushima site. Unit 4 has more fuel in it than any of the other units in the complex, but more importantly it has the most recently used nuclear fuel. And all of that fuel is outside of the containment. So that would make it dangerous enough. Except that also, of course, Unit 4 has had a series of explosions and is weakened structurally. Before it might have withstood a 7.5 earthquake. I believe that the structural damage to Unit 4 is so great that if there is a 7.5 earthquake, it will not withstand it.

Here is what would happen if Unit 4 were to crack and the water were to drain out of the nuclear fuel pool. The fuel is hot enough that it needs to be water-cooled. If air is all there is cooling the fuel, it will burn. It will burn the zircaloy cladding on the fuel, (and) will react with the oxygen to create a fire. And it is a fire that once it starts, cannot be put out by water. Water would make it worse. So the nuclear fuel would have to burn completely before the fire would ever go out.

In the process, all that radiation would go up into the atmosphere and blow all over Japan and all over the world.

There is as much cesium in the fuel pool at Unit 4 as there was in all of the atomic bombs dropped in all of the tests in the 1940's, the 1950's, the 1960's, and into the 1970's. All of the above ground testing has less cesium in it than is in the reactor pool at Fukushima 4 right now. So it is a grave situation. I don't believe that the Japanese Government is moving fast enough. If there is no earthquake, the plan to remove the fuel slowly is going to be adequate. But we cannot wait on Mother Nature. We have to quickly move that fuel out of that pool and onto the ground. The key here is quickly. The Japanese Government finally just this month came up with a plan to build a building around the fuel pool building and begin removing the fuel in 2013 or 2014.

I said that that is what they needed to do on the Fairewinds site in an interview with Chris Martenson a year ago. These things have been evident, but TEPCO is not moving fast enough and the Japanese Government is not pushing TEPCO to move fast enough either. I think the top priority of TEPCO and the top priority of the Japanese Government should be to move the fuel out of that pool just as quickly as possible. And in the meantime, they need to strengthen that pool to make sure that it can withstand an earthquake. Remember, that pool is not in a containment. You can look down in a satellite and see the nuclear fuel. The roof is blown off. And that is what makes it dangerous.

In America, we had the Brookhaven National Laboratory do a study to examine what would happen in a fuel pool fire. Brookhaven National Labs determined that there would be 187,000 people who would develop cancer from a fuel pool fire. It is a serious concern and I do not believe that Tokyo Electric and I do not believe that the Japanese Government is taking it seriously enough. For the last year I have been working with Akio Matsumora and finally it appears that the world community is listening to Akio Matsumora's concerns about the pool. We need to tackle this as a concerned world community and encourage the Japanese Government and encourage Tokyo Electric to solve it quickly. More transcript.

Extremely civil of them to acquiesce to such modernity. But must be said, it strikes me as fairly accurate; about six hundred years behind the times.

Saudi Arabia bans using Gregorian dates

The use of the English language to answer calls or communicate, mainly in companies and hotels, has also been bannedMay 17, 2012

Saudi Arabia has banned all government and private agencies from using the Gregorian calendar in official dealings.

The use of the English language to answer calls or communicate, mainly in companies and hotels, has also been banned, a local daily said.

All ministries and agencies have to use the Hijri dates (Islamic calendar) and the Arabic language, the interior ministry said. The ministry attributed its decision to preserving the Islamic calendar and the Arabic language, Arabic daily Al Watan reported.

In the statement to the ministries and establishments, the ministry said that it noted that some government entities were using Gregorian dates "unnecessarily", in a violation of high orders and instructions. Several hotel and company receptions used English in their communications, the ministry said.

However, ministries and agencies could use the Gregorian calendar, whenever needed, on the condition that it is associated with the corresponding Hijri date. Gulfnews

Plenty more on the Land of Darkness in the side-bar, tagged, Saudi and Us and Them.

Friday, May 18, 2012

I wouldn't mind so much, if there wasn't, and always has been, the teeniest bit of controversy surrounding the case.

And perhaps I'm wrong, but isn't the first rule of policing to keep an open mind?

Madeleine McCann could be living with abductor, says Scotland Yard

Yard releases image of how Madeleine may look five years on and asks Portuguese police to reopen inquiry

Scotland Yard detectives released a picture of what Madeleine McCann may look like today as they said they had uncovered new information to suggest she could be alive and living with her abductor.

The senior officer leading an investigative review into the disappearance of Madeleine five years ago is calling on Portuguese police to reopen their inquiry into the case.

Releasing an age-enhanced image of Madeleine – as she nears her ninth birthday on 12 May – Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, of Scotland Yard's homicide and serious crime command, said: "We genuinely believe there's a possibility that she is alive. I want to make a direct appeal. If you know where Madeleine McCann is or if you have any direct information or evidence about what happened to her, then please make contact."

Redwood and his 37-strong team have identified 195 missed investigative opportunities in the 40,000 pieces of evidence they have examined from the Portuguese inquiry, the family's home force in Leicestershire, and the information gleaned by a team of private detectives hired by the McCann family since Madeleine went missing, aged three, from the resort of Praia de Luz on 3 May 2007.

"We are in a unique position seeking to draw together the three key strands of information about her disappearance," said Redwood.

He unequivocally dismissed the conspiracy theory – promoted by the original Portuguese lead detective Goncalo Amaral – that Madeleine's parents had anything to do with her disappearance.

He said detectives believe Madeleine was abducted in "a criminal act by a stranger".

Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, worked closely with the Met to produce the new image of their daughter.

"Kate says she can see Madeleine's brother and sister Sean and Amelie in it as well as something of herself," said the family's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell. She and Gerry feel very positive and they hope it leads to the breakthrough they have been waiting for."

Redwood's team is sifting page by page through 100,000 documents within the 40,000 pieces of evidence, and are a quarter of the way through the exercise. They are working closely with a team of Portuguese detectives and liaising with law enforcement agencies across Europe and the world when necessary.

They are developing what they believe is "genuinely new information" in the hunt for the child. It is understood, though, that this is not based on any new possible sightings. The team is also pursuing the line of inquiry that after five years Madeleine might be dead.

It is understood that key areas being investigated by Scotland Yard – which the Portuguese police failed to pursue – include analysis of a huge amount of mobile phone cell site evidence that was gathered but never analysed. That evidence could help to trace any suspects who were around the resort.

They are also attempting for the first time to contact all the holidaymakers who were staying around the area of the Mark Warner Ocean club complex between 28 April and 3 May 2007, when Madeleine disappeared from her room while her parents were eating dinner with friends at a nearby tapas bar.

Officers are also focusing on any men in the area with criminal convictions that might indicate they are a danger to children, and investigating the backgrounds of resort staff, including examining whether any had suffered the loss of a child.

Commander Simon Foy, Scotland Yard's head of homicide command, said they would not stop until they discovered what had happened to Madeleine. The review inquiry – which has cost £2m to date – began after the McCanns appealed last year to David Cameron for Scotland Yard to investigate the case.

There are examples of children who have been abducted only to be found alive years later: Jaycee Lee Dugard was found alive 18 years after being snatched at the age of 11 from a bus stop in California; the Austrian schoolgirl Natascha Kampusch was found in 2006, eight years after being abducted aged 10; and Shawn Hornbeck, who disappeared aged 12 in 2002, was found four years later.

The decision on whether to reopen the inquiry in Portugal is in the hands of the country's attorney general. He has said he will only reopen the investigation if "new, serious and relevant evidence emerges". He was not available for comment.

Redwood said the police review team in Portugal were keen for this to happen. "[They] want to reopen the case … They are a new group of investigators and they are completely engaged and totally committed."

Jim Gamble, former head of the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit, said the hunt for Madeleine had now been reignited. "The person who's done it knows they have done it," said Gamble. "They will be paranoid, and it is likely that someone close to them will see that paranoia, or that as the pressure builds someone close to them who knows they have done it, and who is no longer a friend, might come forward.

"One thing is sure: the person who did this will be watching and listening." Guardian

Thursday, May 17, 2012

I don't suppose I mind so much, if those that are taking the piss can run rings round you intellectually. But what about those that aren't gifted in the grey-cell department, what happens when they start taking the piss?

I suppose there are those just bright enough to realise that taking the piss is not really their forte, best to keep it shut for fear of being exposed as a dull chisel in an otherwise box of sharp ones.

But what about that other breed, those so gor blimey fucking stupid that they haven't the brains to realise just what they sound like when they engage mouth in an attempt to convince you of their own position or argument, the Sarah Palins of this world?

But it is the recent introduction of another Palinesque figure, much nearer to home, that prompts me to say these few words. The fellow in question heads a team of three detective inspectors, five detective sergeants, nineteen detective constables and a handful of civilian helpers; he being of course, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, the Sarah Palin of Operation Grange.

Because it is only someone in the Sarah Palin mould that would have the effrontery to stand before us, particularly given all that has been revealed these five years past, and to tell us he, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood and his team, are treating this review as a case of stranger abduction only. Quite staggering really, that any cop heading an enquiry, sorry review, should predetermine cause and effect in the case of a missing three year old.

And given how this 'review' came to pass, it becomes even more staggering, stunning in fact. At the behest of the last two people to see the girl alive, the two people, who to this day are the only persons of interest in her disappearance. At the behest of the Doctors McCann, via a newspaper group, whose list of crimes and misdemeanours are so great that they cannot even be listed here, but do include helping to derail a murder enquiry.

The CEO of that group, Rebecca Brooks, who herself has just been arrested for perverting the course of justice, blackmailed, there is no other word for it; blackmailed the Prime Minister of Great Britain into setting up this sham of a review.

Not only did La Brooks blackmail the PM into setting up this travesty, she dictated what the outcome must be. Because let's face it, this review could never be a bona fide review, the outcome could never be left to chance, could never be left to go where the evidence and indicators took it. Any cop worth his salt would have had a quick shuffty at the files and would have had the parents down the nick and charged even quicker. And not just the parents I add, but the whole sorry lying bunch, the Tapas 7 included.

But Andy Redwood doesn't do that, rather, he liaises with the parents. But exhibiting behaviour even more unacceptable than colluding with the parents, Redwood issues an age progression sketch of Madeleine McCann age nine! Age nine! I ask you.

Just whereabouts does that one fall in Redwood's remit? It's not up to Redwood to start issuing such obscenities, and that's exactly what it is, an obscenity, just the latest in a long line of obscenities. But the release of such a vile thing does serve a purpose, it tells us everything we need to know about this review, its purpose and its outcome, and not least it tells us just how Palinesque is Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood.

~ ~ ~

Something previous, just in case you think I'm being unkind.

Question

I'm not asking for an answer to the ''equation'' but rather to whom or to what body you might think this examination question might be asked.

'You find a purse in the street, it contains a £5 note, four 20p pieces and five two pence pieces, how much is in the purse?'

And what pray brought all this on? Something I didn't mention in the main body, something just too ridiculous for words, something that spawned three out of the four graphics below. Because whatever I have ended up writing, started out only as a vehicle to offer up these few graphics.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

In light of the recent revelations aired at the Leveson inquiry and the production of an excellent short video compilation by campaigner Hi De Ho, I have decided to break my silence on the subject Rebecca Brooks/News Int, David Cameron and the sham review of the case of Doctors McCann.

But first, a little background.

The date: Wednesday, 28 April 2010 post title: You Just Could Not Make It Up

(Gerry McCann) He said: "It's not right that an innocent, vulnerable British citizen is essentially given up on.

"And I don't think it's right that as parents, that we have to drive the search.

Priceless, absolutely priceless.

And how he loves to take the piss.

"I mean logically I can't say, I mean none of us can say for definite other than the people involved.......

And the "Comprehensive Review" I think that's a euphemism for his muckers (friends) doing a snow job.

I can see it now, on the notepaper of some dodgy police authority, co-signed at the bottom by McCann's new best best friend Jim Gamble, "This boy really did loose his homework"

I am re-upping this earlier post because it highlights the more odious goings on of the UK media.

The date: Saturday, 22 October 2011: Post title: Imagine

Imagine

I am posting the few lines below, just as I found them.

If it was the writers intention, and I'm pretty sure it was, it is the last sentence of the article that is the essence of the post.

It screams, well to me it does. Just who, and how many, were involved in directing the judge to grant an injunction prohibiting the sale of Goncalo Amaral's book, A Verdade de Mentira?

Books simply do not get banned in a European democracy in the twenty first century.

They simply don't. And they don't get banned for the unbelievably pathetic reasons that were proffered by the McCanns.

As equally, the government of a country, does not treat, or allow to be treated, by itself or by the scum of Europe, one of its Nationals in a manner described in the article, and that can only be described as appalling, Not if it has an ounce of pride it doesn't.

And not when they (the establishment) know in their heart of hearts, that the fellow was right all along.

Let us forget now for a moment, all that has preceded a quite recent event, the 'Review' by the Metropolitan Police. Because it is from a British perspective that the whole thing reads like a bad play. The governing power of the United Kingdom has undertaken to review the files at the behest of the two people who are to this day, the only persons of interest regarding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

You simply just could not make it up, no matter how hard you tried.

And if anyone is expecting something positive out of this review, don't, it isn't going to happen.

Imagine you had been a police officer for 30 years and that you were investigating the disappearance of a little English girl named Maddie McCann.

Imagine that all the police officers, including you, concluded that the little girl had died and that the parents were suspects of being involved in concealing the body.

Imagine that the little girl’s parents were made official suspects and that the English press started to call you “bungling cop”, “amateur”, “corrupted”, “inept”, “incompetent” and “failure”.

Imagine that the English press started to announce on a daily basis that you had “manufactured the case”, “made stuff up”, “”ditched vital evidence”, “hampered the investigation”, that you were “biased”, “cruel” and “lying”.

Imagine that for month after month, the English press called you “fat”, “drunk”, “torturer”, “stupid”, “imbecile” and “infamous”, repeating 418 times that you were a “disgraced” man and that the mother of your children was a “prostitute”.

Imagine that the police’s political directory did not defend you and that, quite to the contrary, it took the case investigation away from you, allowing for the English press to print the headline “Sacked!” and to renew all previous attacks with increased violence.

Imagine that the Public Ministry declared that the process would wait for the production of better evidence and that said statement was understood in England as an “acquittal” of the little girl’s parents, prompting even more attacks from the press against the “bungling cop”, “amateur” and “corrupt”, who “manufactured the case”, “made stuff up” and “ditched vital evidence”.

Have you imagined all of this? Well, then answer this question: IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK TO DEFEND YOUR REPUTATION, WOULD YOU WRITE IT?

Now imagine that the book was taken off the market because it damaged the little girl’s parents’ reputation. Imagine

~ ~ ~

The same few words that I employed above, the introduction for the Imagine article, I also went on to make use of to introduce a post: Date: Wednesday, 26 October 2011 Post title: Home Secretary Perhaps You Might Care To Review This: Re-Up

It is far too large to import here, but it deals primarily with previous Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, Jim Gamble and the CEOP's, "Behavioural Analysis Unit" and not least the body language of the Doctors McCann.

Moving towards the crux of the matter, the recent revelations of La Brooks at the Leveson inquiry. It might be an opportune moment to offer our current Home Secretary, Theresa May, a small apology for any previous stick that I may have given her. Because due to the same Rebecca Brooks revelations, it becomes increasingly apparent that Theresa May doesn't run the Home Office, rather it's La Brooks and the Devil incarnate Rupert Murdoch.

Much the same I suppose, can be said for Number 10. But then we knew that already, prior to the recent disclosure of the Brooks/Murdoch edict, via the front page of The Sun.

But what we didn't know prior to Brook's appearance at the Leveson inquiry, were the far from subtle techniques employed by Brooks when meeting the Champion of Chipping Norton, our own dear Prime Minister, David Cameron. 'Do as I say or else!' or words to that effect.

It was for no reason that Robert Jay reiterated his question to Brooks, and I quote:

Robert Jay: Unless the Prime Minister ordered the review by the Metropolitan Police, the Sun would put the Home Secretary, Theresa May, on the front page until the Sun's demands were met?

Denied by Brooks of course, but her obvious use of semantics, "I did not say blah blah' was immediately picked up by Leveson who went on to ask her to define how she would describe the situation. I will say no more of this exchange, it can all be found in this excellent little video compilation, courtesy of Hi De Ho

All in all, not one of La Brooks more polished performances, the cynical amongst you might even think she was being economical with the actuality.

Of John Redwood, the Met, and the review itself, I have already made my thoughts clear on that little pantomime. Preferring as I do, unlike the Met, to hang on to any credibility that I may have, rather than start to argue about 'leads' from psychics and soothsayers. No matter how many they are purported to be.

A little more on Cameron, May and the review below the video, and a little something that sheds further light on the relationship between Murdoch, the police and the McCanns.

If I were Home Secretary and had been stabbed in the back by Cameron for cheap political gain, I think I might be issuing an edict to a few senior plod, bring me the truth not a whitewash.

That's assuming I still had any credibility left of course.

Overruled at the behest of a couple of chavs, this politicking, it's not all beer and skittles is it Therasa? more

~ ~ ~

The McCann Connection: Now I See July 20, 2011

At the very end of the article below, the writer, Peter Burden, asks:

If the MPs had asked Yates if he knew who sponsored the Annual Police Bravery awards, I wonder if they would have been surprised to hear that it is in fact the Screws stable-mate, the Sun,

Well, I can't speak for the MPs, but I'm most certainly surprised to be made aware of this little nugget. And having been made aware of it; my, how things do drop into place.

What am I talking about? Probably the most singular bizarre incident in the whole of the Madeleine McCann affair, even more bizarre than Jim Gamble's unequivocal support of Kate and Gerry McCann, the appearance of Gerry McCann as guest of honour at the NPIA's Annual Police Bravery awards; sponsors, as we now know, News International.

Before the article in question, two brief histories.

Madeleine's father hails UK police Friday, 13 Jul 2007

The father of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann has praised the "sterling work" of police officers and detectives in the UK.

Speaking at the National Police Federation annual bravery awards last night, Gerry McCann said the role of police forces was "often not appreciated until you really need their help".

Leaving his wife Kate and two young twins behind in Portugal, Mr McCann has flown to Britain to talk to police involved in the search for his daughter. She remains missing after being abducted from her bed while she slept at a holiday resort in Praia da Luz, the Algarve, on May 3rd.

He will also visit the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre later today to discuss their role in aiding Portuguese police find Madeleine.At last night's award ceremony, attended by Prince Charles, Mr McCann received a standing ovation from police officers, which he described as a "humbling" experience.

"The vast majority of [police officers] that I managed to speak to are, like us, very optimistic that we will find Madeleine safe and well," he wrote later on his online blog. more

- - -

And this from the inimitable Blackwatch.

Grooming the McCanns: Amber Alert, the Prüm Treaty and Government Interference in the McCann CaseAuthor Blackwatch 12/08/2009

How The Madeleine Case Supported the Extension of Amber Alert System and the EU's Prüm Treaty To The Remaining 27 Member States - And How Downing Street Obliged

In response to the question, how will the McCanns be remembered, one Mirror Forum member wrote:

“they will become a leading force in the world to get rid of the hidden evil in our society, and to out those who try to cover up for the tragedies these criminals can cause”.

For a couple who were at this time suspects in their daughter's disappearance, the statement brokered something of a paradox; just how could these two ordinary individuals who had been openly pilloried for their routine negligence transform themselves into credible figureheads for law-enforcement overnight? Within the time it took to finish one glass of wine and discover one of your children missing, the McCanns exchanged their prison-issue denims for outfits tailored to a more 'practical' design.

And what at first had sounded like a most absurd suggestion by one deluded forum member steadily acquired some semblance of authority.

GERRY IS HONOURED AT POLICE BRAVERY AWARDS FOR A LIFETIME (WELL 6 WEEKS OR SO) OF SERVICES TO … MISSING KIDS AND STUFF ... JULY 2007

Retracing our steps to mid-July 2007 and we find ourselves standing alongside hundreds of dumbfounded uniformed officers at the Dorchester Hotel, invited from our seats by senior personnel to applaud one Gerald P McCann at the Police Bravery Awards. First we’d had the poignant video of his daughter, then the speech praising both UK Officers and the Polícia Judiciária, now we had the standing ovation. And for what? Just what were we honouring? Gerry’s contribution to ‘what’ exactly? One of the serving South Yorkshire officers receiving an award there that night described it as one of the most surreal events of his life. Sitting at his table was none other than Gerry McCann, 1500 metre junior running medallist and celebrated kidnap personality. And he wasn’t just down on the guest-list; Gerry was guest of honour. It was like having Mark Stanley - the man responsible for shutting the doors on the Herald of Free Enterprise as it left Zeebrugge - guest-of honour at the annual Maritime and Coastguard awards.

Naturally, not even this prepared us for what was to come. But just how did we get to this stage?

I HAVE A DREAM – GERRY’S EPIPHANY – FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN THEN WE TAKE BERLIN

In mid-June, in an interview given to the Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, Gerry McCann told of an "extraordinary experience" inside the church in Praia da Luz just days after Madeleine's disappearance:

"I had this mental image of being in a tunnel and instead of the light at the end of the tunnel being extremely narrow and a distant spot, the light opened up and the tunnel got wider and wider and went in many different directions .... I can't say it was a vision because I am not clear what a vision is but I had a mental image and it certainly helped me decide. I became a man possessed that night. The next day I was up at dawn, making phone calls."

At this point in time Madeleine has been missing, presumed abducted, for little more than 3 weeks. But in what can only be described as an epiphany or profound breakthrough, Gerry McCann is sufficiently inspired and transformed enough to pursue a totally new direction. At a time when most people in his position are coming round from the effects of a mild sedative Gerry decides to resign his position at Glenfield Hospital and spearhead a campaign on behalf of missing and exploited children everywhere. His mission starts modestly enough; a meeting with SOS Crianca, the main child welfare non-governmental organisation in Portugal and then to London for a meeting at the Headquarters of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. And then things start getting a little giddy. Gerry visits the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children in Washington, bonds with the US attorney general Gonzales at the justice department, grapples at the White House with the First Lady's deputy chief of staff, Sarah Armstrong and follows it up with a mid-afternoon jog up Capitol Hill for meetings with Democrat congressman Nick Lampson and Republican Senator Robert Shelby.

And then, of course, we have that ill-timed appointment in Edinburgh with Kirsty Wark who interviews Gerry at the Edinburgh International TV festival, shortly before he and his wife are declared formal suspects.

Not bad for a couple from Leicester who were presumed reckless enough to leave their daughter unattended for several nights of the week on a jolly old Summer Holiday with their mates in Portugal. There is a great deal more to this article which can be found here.

- - -

The article in question, from 2009 no less. And only discovered in researching an article to come, on Yates of the Yard misuse of public funds in hiring Carter-Ruck in an attempt to gag solicitor Mark Lewis. But more of that later.

A curious, alarming anomaly was revealed last Wednesday during a session of the Commons Culture, Media, Sport Committee. A very senior police officer told the committee that while investigating the News of the World phone-tapping incident, an unequivocal piece of evidence had not convinced his officers that it required further investigation.

This evidence was the now infamous email sent from junior screws hack, Ross Hall (AKA Hindley) to contract private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, which said: ‘This is the transcript for Neville,’ with the transcript of a message left on the voicemail of Gordon Taylor, boss of the PFA, intercepted and recorded by Mulcaire.

Mulcaire pleaded guilty to hacking into Taylor’s voicemail after he’d also admitted to hacking into the voicemails of members of the Clarence House staff. He was jailed for these offences (which the News of the World encouraged him to commit by giving him a special contract signed by former Screws news editor, Greg Miskiw), and he served his sentence.

The Metropolitan Police investigation, headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Williams, decided that despite the email’s clear reference to senior Screws hack, Neville Thurlbeck, clearly connecting him to an illegally acquired phone message, there was no basis for questioning Thurlbeck. There was, they said, no evidence to put to him or any other News of the World staff whose names had cropped in connection with this entirely unroyal-related hacking.

If this seems strangely lacking in diligence on their part, it seems even more so after hearing evidence given to the committee, after the police had appeared, by Mark Lewis, the lawyer who successfully sued the News of the World on behalf of Gordon Taylor. We learned from him that after he had acquired a court order requesting documentary evidence of Taylor’s complaint from the Metropolitan Police, Detective Sergeant Mark Maberly told Lewis that he “wasn’t having everything, but we’ll give you enough to hang the News of the World over Gordon Taylor”.

This statement, as reported by Lewis is unequivocal, and it’s out of the question that he would dissemble in front of a Parliamentary Committee. Besides, the Screws offered a £1m to shut Taylor up before the case got to court, so the evidence clearly was damning (for they had denied any knowledge of the offence until Lewis produced the Met’s evidence).

Why on earth didn’t the Met choose to prosecute the paper themselves when they had such a clear case? Lewis’s evidence makes a nonsense of what Asst Com Yates had told the committee only half and hour before. He should be called in again to explain himself.

The police had been asked by one of the MPs about their relationship with the News of the World. Not surprisingly Yates offered some weasel stuff about needing to a have a relationship with such an “important newspaper”.

If the MPs had asked Yates if he knew who sponsored the Annual Police Bravery awards, I wonder if they would have been surprised to hear that it is in fact the Screws stable-mate, the Sun, and the News International top brass all attend this lavish ceremony each year, including of course Rebekah (née Wade) Brooks now CEO of News International, and, no doubt, a good friend of the Met brass-hats. [see: http://www.peterburden.net/archives/280 ] And I’ve long wondered why the Met have so often gone along with some of the absurdly fanciful ‘criminal investigations’ spun out of nowhere by Screws star, Mazher Mahmood. Peter Burden.net

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The Gor Blimey Hall of Fame

We aren’t writing about the investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann or any possible suspects: we don’t want to prejudice a legal process that is working in a most satisfactory way. - John Blacksmith

Read the Summers and Swan book if you want an impartial intelligent insight. It debunks conspiracy theorists amateur analysis - Jim Gamble

"I have seen no basis at any stage for challenging the integrity of the police."

Lord Justice Leveson - The Leveson Inquiry

We never take for granted the continued support and trust which Londoners feel for their Met.Bernard Hogan-Howe

Bush told reporters that “One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, ‘Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve, because they laid the foundations for peace for generations to come.’

George W Bush on Iraq 2008

"It is sad that we live in a time when a talented and honourable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons," Bush said in Crawford, Texas.

''The effects of radiation do not come to people that are happy and laughing. They come to people that are weak-spirited, that brood and fret.''

“I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.”

Bush interview 60 Minutes 1/14/07

“All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.” – John Hagee

''Once Iraq becomes a very rich and prosperous country... we would hope that some consideration be given to repaying the United States some of the mega-dollars that we have spent here in the last eight years.

We were hoping that there would be a consideration of a payback because the United States right now is in close to a very serious economic crisis and we could certainly use some people to care about our situation as we have cared about theirs.''

Dana Rohrabacher (R) June 2011

''It's not natural for animals to eat each other, they have taken on the nature of Satan. What is natural for animals is to live in the way they were created in the Garden of Eden.''